St Xavier’s College (Autonomous) Ahmedabad
MA English Literature: Syllabus
Semester-I
Paper: History of English Literature 1500-1660
Course Code: PEN-1801
No. of Credits: 04
Learning Hours: 60 hrs
Unit-1: Theory of Shakespearean Tragedy - AC Bradley: Shakespearean Tragedy ‘Lectures I
and II’ and Lectures on King Lear
Unit-2: Shakespeare: King Lear
Unit-3: The Classical Epic Tradition - CM Bowra:From Virgil to Milton‘The Classical Epic
Tradition’
Unit-4: Milton: Paradise Lost, Book I
Unit-5: Acquaintances (detailed)
1. Spenser: The Faerie Queene b) Marlowe: Dr. Faustus
2. Sidney: Arcadia
3. Ben Jonson: Volpone
4. Thomas Kyd: The Spanish Tragedy.
Semester-I
Paper: Research Methodology
Course Code: PEN-1802
No. of Credits: 04
Learning Hours: 60 hrs
Unit-1: Identification of a Research Problem - MLA Handbook VII
Unit-2: Documentation and Intellectual Property.
Unit-3: Bibliography (Print and Web).
Unit-4: Bibliography (AV sources).
Unit-5: Entries concerning research documentation:
Creating parenthetical documentation and the relation between parenthetical reference,
Quotations with related bibliographical entry, evaluating print sources ,Summarizing,
paraphrasing etc. Visual Resources.
Resources for Book : Reviews periodical indexes, web sources
Note: 1. Distribution of Marks to be taken care of for the above Course 502. 2. For Blind
Students: Instead of bibliographical entries there shall be two short notes out of four in
Question No. 3 & 4.
Semester-I
Paper: History of English Literature 1660-1798
Course Code: PEN-1803
No. of Credits: 04
Learning Hours: 60 hrs
Unit-1: Development of drama: Restoration Comedy and Tragedy, Sentimental Comedy,
Revival of Comedy (Sheridan and Goldsmith).
PramodNayar: A History of English Literature (Chapter 6)
Recommended reading:Allardyce Nicoll: British Drama ‘Chapter IV’
Unit-2: John Dryden: All for Love.
Unit -3: Congreve: The Way of the World.
Unit-4: Sheridan: The Rivals.
Unit-5: Acquaintances (detailed)
1. Pope: The Rape of the Lock
2. Defoe: Robinson Crusoe
3. Swift: Gulliver’s Travels
4. Richardson: Pamela
5. Goldsmith: The Deserted Village
Semester-I
Paper: Women's Writing
Course Code: PEN-1804
No. of Credits: 04
Learning Hours: 60 hrs
Unit-1: Virginia Woolf: A Room of One's Own.
Unit-2: Kamala Das: The Old Playhouse and Other Poems.
Unit-3: Barbara Smith: Toward a Black Feminist Criticism.
Unit-4: Toni Morrison: The Bluest Eye.
Unit-5: Acquaintances same as GU
1. Shashi Deshpande: Moving On
2.
3.
4.
5.
Kiran Desai: The Inheritance of Loss
Kundanika Kapadia: Seven Steps in the Sky
IsmatChugtai: The Quilt
ImtiazDharkar: Purdah I and II
Semester-I
Paper: Grammar and the History of Language
Course Code: PEN-1805A
No. of Credits: 04
Learning Hours: 60 hrs
Semester-I
Paper: Literature from the Margins
Course Code: PEN-1805B
No. of Credits: 04
Learning Hours: 60 hrs
Unit-1: Mahesh Dattani: On a Muggy Night in Mumbai.
Unit-2: Dangle: Poisoned Bread
Selected texts: BaburaoBagul, ‘Mother’ andKumudPawde, ‘The Story of My Sanskrit’
Unit-3: GayatriSpivak: ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’
Unit-4: GaneshDevy: Painted Words
Selected texts: Mahashweta Devi, ‘Makar Savar‘ and ‘KunkanaRamayan’
Unit-5: Acquaintances: Gloria Anzaldua: Borderlands/La Frontera
Trinh Minh-ha: ‘No Master Territories’
Zora Neale Hurston: Their Eyes Were Watching God
JenetteWinterson: Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
NtozakeShange: for colored girls who have considered suicide.
Semester-I
Paper: Seminar Paper
Course Code: PEN-1806
No. of Credits: 04
Learning Hours: 60 hrs
Research papers between 10 and 12 pages long, on areas related to the papers taught during
the first semester.
Semester-II
Paper: History of English Literature: 1798-1900
Course Code: PEN-2801
No. of Credits: 04
Learning Hours: 60 hrs
Unit-1: Wordsworth and Coleridge: ‘Preface’ to The Lyrical Ballads.
Unit-2: Wordsworth and Coleridge: The Lyrical Ballads (Poems specified in GU)
1. I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
2. To a Cuckoo
3. To a Skylark
4. The Solitary Reaper
5. My Heart Leaps Up
6. To a Butterfly
7. The Foster Mother’s Tale
8. The Nightingale: A Conversation Poem
9. She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways
10. The Dungeon
Unit-3: The theatre of Ideas - Alladyce Nicoll: British Drama (Chapter 7)
Unit-4: GB Shaw: Candida
Unit-5: Acquaintances as GU
1. Jane Austen: Emma
2. Charles Dickens: Oliver Twist
3. Byron: Don Juan
4. Charles Lamb: Essays of Elia
5. Orwell: Animal Farm
Semester-II
Paper: History of English Literature: 1900-present
Course Code: PEN-2802
No. of Credits: 04
Learning Hours: 60 hrs
Unit-1: Socio-Political and Intellectual Background - Pelican Guide Volume VII:
‘Introduction’
Unit-2: DH Lawrence: Women in Love.
Unit-3: Movement Poetry - The Pelican Guide Volume VII
Unit-4: Philip Larkin: High Windows.
Unit-5: Acquaintances as in GU
1. T. S. Eliot: The Waste Land
2. Harold Pinter: Homecoming
3. Ted Hughes: The Hawk in the Rain
4. Russell: Education and Social Order
5. Conrad: Heart of Darkness
Semester-II
Paper: American Literature
Course Code: PEN-2803
No. of Credits: 04
Learning Hours: 60 hrs
Unit-1: American Renaissance.
Unit-2: Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter.
Unit-3: Harlem Renaissance
Unit-4: Langston Hughes: Selected Poems
1. Let America Be America Again
2. I, Too, Sing America
3. Dream Deferred
4. The Negro Mother
5. Justice
6. Problems
7. The Negro Speaks of Rivers
8. Quiet Girl
9. Mother to Son
10. Democracy
11. Night Funeral in Harlem
12. The Blues
13. Still Here
14. Dream Variations
15. Life is Fine.
Unit-5: Acquaintances same as GU
1. Arthur Miller: Death of a Salesman
2. Emerson: Brahma
3. Alice Walker: The Color Purple
4. Thoreau: Walden Pond
5. Sylvia Plath: Ariel
Semester-II
Paper: Indian Literature in English
Course Code: PEN-2804
No. of Credits: 04
Learning Hours: 60 hrs
Unit-1: Frye: ‘Myth, Fiction, Displacement’
Unit-2: Karnad: Yayati
Unit-3: Indian Novelists in English M K Naik
Unit-4: Arundhati Roy: The God of Small Things
Unit-5: Acquaintances
1. Raja Rao: Kanthapura
2. Anita Desai: Cry, the Peacock
3. Shashi Deshpande: That Long Silence
4. Salman Rushdie: Midnight’s Children
5. Arundhati Roy: The God of Small Things.
Semester-II
Paper: Phonetics
Course Code: PEN-2805A
No. of Credits: 04
Learning Hours: 60 hrs
Semester-II
Paper: Narrative
Course Code: PEN-2805B
No. of Credits: 04
Learning Hours: 60 hrs
Unit-1 and Unit-2 : Narrative theory
1. Paul Cobley: Narrative (New Critical Idiom)
2. Mieke Bal: Narratology(section)
Unit-3: Emily Bronte: Wuthering Heights.
Unit-4: Alice Walker: By the Light of My Father’s Smile.
Unit-5: Acquaintances: Italo Calvino: If on a Winter’s Night…
Propp: Morphology of the Folk Tale
Vladimir Bulgakov: The Master and Margarita
Todorov: Structural Analysis of Narrative
Marquez: One Hundred Years of Solitude
Semester-II
Paper: Seminar
Course Code: PEN-2806
No. of Credits: 04
Learning Hours: 60 hrs
Semester III
Paper: World Drama
Course Code: PEN-3801
No. of Credits: 04
Learning Hours: 60 hrs
Unit-1: Theatre of the Absurd - Martin Esslin: Theatre of the Absurd
Unit-2: Pinter: Homecoming.
Unit-3: Bigsby: Modern American Drama (Introduction and section on Miller).
Unit-4: Arthur Miller: All My Sons.
Unit-5: Acquaintances
1. Luigi Pirandello: Six Characters in Search of an Author
2. Bertolt Brecht: Mother Courage
3. Sudraka: The Little Clay Cart
4. Chekhov: The Cherry Orchyard
5. Genet: The Balcony
Semester III
Paper: World Classics in Translation
Course Code: PEN-3802
No. of Credits: 04
Learning Hours: 60 hrs
Unit-1: Existentialism - The Oxford Short Introduction to Existentialism
Unit-2: Camus: The Plague.
Unit-3: Rasa Theory Kapoor:
Unit-4: Kalidasa: Shakuntala
Unit-5: Acquaintances
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Bhasa: Swapnavasavadattam
Sophocles: Oedipus Rex
Albert Camus: The Outsider
Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment
Tolstoy: War and Peace
Semester III
Paper: Literary Criticism
Course Code: PEN-3803
No. of Credits: 04
Learning Hours: 60 hrs
Unit-1: Natyashastra Chapters 1 and 6
Unit-2: Dr. Johnson: Preface to Shakespeare.
Unit-3: S Fish: ‘Is there a text in this class?’
Unit-4: Terry Eagleton: Literary Theory‘Introduction’
Unit-5: Acquaintances (terms)
1. Post-Structuralism
2. Psychoanalysis
3. The Chicago School
4. The Geneva School
5. Post-Modernism
Semester III
Paper: Post-Colonial Literature
Course Code: PEN-3804
No. of Credits: 04
Learning Hours: 60 hrs
Unit-1: Postcoloniality
The Postcolonial Studies Reader: Tiffin, ‘’Post-Colonial Literatures’, Appiah, ‘The
Postcolonial and the Postmodern’, Fanon, ‘National Culture’
Unit-2: Achebe: Things Fall Apart
Unit-3: Cesaire: Discourse on Colonialism
Unit-4: Conrad: Heart of Darkness
Unit-5: Acquaintances
1. George Orwell: Burmese Days
2.
3.
4.
5.
Edward Thompson: An Indian Day
Amitav Ghosh: Shadow Lines
Jean Rhys: Wide Sargasso Sea
Dorris Lessing: The Grass Is Singing
Semester III
Paper: Communication Skills
Course Code: PEN-3805A
No. of Credits: 04
Learning Hours: 60 hrs
Semester III
Paper: South-Asian Diasporic Writing
Course Code: PEN-3805B
No. of Credits: 04
Learning Hours: 60 hrs
Unit-1: Bhabha: The Location of Culture.
Unit-2: Ghosh: ‘Diaspora in Indian Culture’
Unit-3: Rushdie: Midnight’s Children.
Unit-4: Rushdie: Midnight’s Children.
Unit-5: Acquaintances:
1. RohintonMistry: Talesfrom FirozshaBaag
2. HanifKureishi: My Son the Fanatic
3. Salman Rushdie: Imaginary Homelands
4. Monica Ali: Bricklane
5. Mohsin Hamid: The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Semester III
Paper: Seminar
Course Code: PEN-3806
No. of Credits: 04
Learning Hours: 60 hrs
Semester IV
Paper: Special Author: T. S. Eliot
Course Code: PEN-4801
No. of Credits: 04
Learning Hours: 60 hrs
Unit-1: Poetic Drama.
Unit-2: Murder in the Cathedral.
Unit-3: ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’.
Unit-4: The Waste Land.
Unit-5: Acquaintances
1. War poetry
2. Dadaism
3. Stream of Consciousness
4. Myth Criticism
5. Avant-Garde
Semester IV
Paper: Gender and Literature
Course Code: PEN-4802
No. of Credits: 04
Learning Hours: 60 hrs
Unit-1: Gillman: ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’
Unit-2: Tennyson: ‘The Lady of Shalott’
Unit-3: A Revathi: The Story of My Life.
Unit-4: Gender - Butler: ‘Introduction’ to Gender Trouble.
Unit-5: Acquaintances
1. W.B. Yeats: Prayer for My Daughter
2. Virginia Woolf: New Dress
3. Caryl Churchill: Top Girls—A Play
4. Chinua Achebe: Things Fall Apart
5. Toni Morrison: Sula
Semester IV
Paper: Contemporary Theory
Course Code: PEN-4803
No. of Credits: 04
Learning Hours: 60 hrs
Unit-1: Foucault: ‘What is an Author?’
Unit-2: Derrida: ‘Structure, Sign and Play’
Unit-3: Showalter: ‘Feminist Criticism in the Wilderness’
Unit-4: Bakhtin: ‘Discourse in the Novel.
Unit-5: Acquaintances
1. New Criticism
2. Marxism
3. Post-colonial discourse
4. Minority Discourses
5. Eco-Feminism
Semester IV
Paper: Literature and Other Art Forms
Course Code: PEN-4804
No. of Credits: 04
Learning Hours: 60 hrs
Unit-1: Mimesis in Plato and Aristotle
Aristotle: Poetics (Chapters 1 and 2)
Unit-2: Natyashastra (chapters 5, 6)
Unit-3: Rossetti: ‘The Blessed Damosel’
Unit-4: KrushnalalMohanlalZaveri: Milestones in Gujarati Literature (Garba, Ballad)
Unit-5: Acquaintances:
1. BinodiniDasi: My Story and My Life as an Actress
2. Mulk Raj Anand: ‘What is Common to the Arts?
3. Literature and Painting
4. Literature and Cinema
5. Literature and Theatre
Semester IV
Paper: Professional Skills
Course Code: PEN-4805A
No. of Credits: 04
Learning Hours: 60 hrs
Semester IV
Paper: Partition Literature
Course Code: PEN-4805B
No. of Credits: 04
Learning Hours: 60 hrs
Unit-1 & Unit-2 : Historical, Political, Cultural contexts
Urvashi Butalia: The Other Side of Silence and Ritu Menon: Borders and Boundaries.
Unit-3: Sadaat Husain Manto: ‘Open It’, ‘ThandaGhosht’, ‘Toba Tek Singh’.
Unit-4: BapsiSidhwa: Ice-Candy Man.
Unit-5: Acquaintances
1. AmitavGhosh: Shadow Lines
2. Kushwant Singh: Train to Pakistan
3. Manohar Malgonkar: A Bend in the Ganges
4. Amrita Pritam: ‘Ode to Waris Shah’
5. Gulzar: RaaviPaar
Semester IV
Paper: Seminar
Course Code: PEN-4806
No. of Credits: 04
Learning Hours: 60 hrs
The seminar paper will be 20-25 pages long and can follow any of the following patterns:
1. Creative Writing
2. Translation
3. Critical Analysis